Includes: The contests are the same as the regular issue however the cover is a one-of-a-kind made by an artist friend of Smartish Pace. The covers are made of everything from oil paint to collage. Watch the making of the covers. Trust us, you will love it; everyone gets a different cover!

Includes: The contests are the same as the regular issue however the cover is a one-of-a-kind made by an artist friend of Smartish Pace. The covers are made of everything from oil paint to collage. Watch the making of the covers. Trust us, you will love it; no two covers are the same!

of animals that made the earth so green. A meal of blood—the language exact

for once, yet when I sniffed the box with its stale, flat smell

of old blood, I could also smell

the scent of children’s breath and I recalled the taste

of lovers’ long last kisses in the dark before

the night is done. Breath and blood

nitrogen and green Tammy Smith and me

kissing in the grass beside the car, the afternoon

of the solar eclipse when these slivers

of sunlight, like crescent moons, were scattered in the shadows

as if the world were wearing the robes of sorcerers

and that night when I was in and out

of her and the heavens were out of reach

as they usually are and now I remember this

my mouth dry with the memory— dry with that stale, flat taste

and I stand up with it all and walk around my study

thinking about the Lumina and Tammy Smith

this wild embrace of one thing with another,

me finally at the edge of the pond—hot,

bloody with fly bites, I’m seeing the simple flower at last—

the Floating Heart feasting on

its dense entanglements.

R.M. Ryan is the author of Goldilocks in Later Life (poems, LSU, 1980) and of The Golden Rules (novel, Four Walls Eight Windows/No Exit, 2002) which is currently being translated into Italian. His poetry appears in Smartish Pace, Issues 11 & 13. [bio updated 2006]